BTW﻿﻿, let's not antagonize @kerbalstar any further and keep discus﻿sion about potential challenges to the discord channel :-)﻿﻿﻿﻿

Thanks! :-). But seriously, I’m not antagonized, I just don’t want people to get confused. That hasn’t happened again, so you’re fine to talk about your suggestion! I like discussion and

Spoiler

we have picked your challenge to be this weeks challenge! We’re not normally supposed to share the challenge before, but since so many people have been talking about it, I figured I would. Don’t start early though! There will be additional requirements!

Like I said, I like discussion, I also don’t want people to get confused, hence why I created the Discord, with a separate area for challenge suggestion discussion, to avoid confusion. I wish the forum would support that.

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The next challenge, requested so many times by @The Minmus Derp , is to construct a single or multiple launch Minmus base which must have: Ore drilling and storage, comms, room for 4 Kerbals, and some sort of entertainment(i.e., a fun craft like the one on my base above, on the right of the picture, or some sort of interesting terrain nearby)

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I assumed that hill would qualify even if I didn't manage to land directly in the crater but yeah. Unless I could just launch a second vehicle there with both and so have it count. At least it can improve in that I should've landed in day time, its much harder to land during the night as the first attempt led to the left solar panel breaking off, the second one didn't though the engine is destroyed

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I assumed that hill would qualify even if I didn't manage to land directly in the crater but yeah. Unless I could just launch a second vehicle there with both and so have it count. At least it can improve in that I should've landed in day time, its much harder to land during the night as the first attempt led to the left solar panel breaking off, the second one didn't though the engine is destroyed

You can just launch the second one and park it next to it, it can be multiple launch according to the brief

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Turned out to have a couple issues with both ground attachments (will need to build a bit more rigid connection) and the base's ISRU (why the stupid thing doesn't work without an ore tank?). sending request to KSC for a supply package

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There's concern some people will struggle with this liquid fuel to orbit challenge, so i'll try to give some pointers if you want to go for a "Cruiser spaceplane" type solution

1. Use Mark 1 parts ! Mk2 parts have loads more drag, and will make this much harder

2. But what about heat ? Use an inline cockpit, and try to put the crewed bits 1 or 2 modules back from the front of the stack. eg. Shock cone intake at the front, service bay, then cockpit/crew cabin.

3. Try to keep all your fuel in big S strakes and wing parts, they have the lowest drag per unit of fuel stored. Yes, cylindrical tanks have slightly lower mass, but that gets lost in the mass of those heavy NERVs. Also , wing parts make LIFT and you'll want all the lift you can get. If your design needs more fuel, clip some extra strakes on and fill em up. Of course, if you need a trim tank at the front or back of your craft and don't want wings there because that'd mess with your Centre of Lift, by all means drop a cylindrical tank in.

4. Similarly, you ideally want all your lift surfaces to be big S ones that do double duty as fuel tanks, but in practice you may need to add small modular wing parts at the front or back to fine tune your CoL, and you might not also want to add fuel in the same location, so do what you need to do to get it flying straight and true !

5. One jet engine per 20 to 30 tons of takeoff weight. At the upper end of this range it gets harder to accelerate and the flight takes longer, at the lower end you are more likely to have fuel issues.

6. One nuke per 10 to 15 tons of takeoff weight.

7. To reach orbit comfortably, you want 25 to 33% of your craft's total weight to be fuel.

Suggested mods -

1. RCS build aid - make 's it really easy to see where your CoM will be when the fuel burns off, and if your engines are out of line with centre of mass and likely to cause pitch up or down torque

2. CorrectCoL - makes the blue centre of lift indicator more accurate

3. Kerbal Wind Tunnel - shows how much excess power your craft has at each speed and altitude, shows you where it's easiest to bust the sound barrier

One thing i still struggle with is centre of mass/craft layout. Nukes are really heavy and you can't shove your crew cabins too far forward to balance them or you'll roast in the re-entry heat. So you want to put the nukes as far forward as possible, but at the same time the efflux needs to not impinge on the wings or other surfaces ... and you can't mount them too far above or below the centreline of your craft or you get unwanted torque. Over to you guys, lets see some creative designs..

P.S.
Another bit of rearranging, and now it allows more stretching and doesn't tear itself from the ground anymore (so much for hoping those ground connectors and heavy pipes would be more reliable). And by moving the winches to the pillars, the seat could be stripped of power supply and made lighter. Jeb approvesAlso finally reinstalled the radiators (there were 2 initially, but 1 got broken on fairing separation)

If your favorite mod is Hyperedit, then no. Sorry. Unless a challenge says to use Hyperedit, then you can't use it. You: Why would a challenge say to use Hyperedit? Hey, don't interrupt my answer, I was getting to that! (Joking.) A challenge might say to use Hyperedit if say, you're supposed to rendezvous with something in orbit, and putting it there isn't part of the challenge (unlikely, but maybe), it might say just Hyperedit it up there. Anyway, non-cheaty or OP mods or fine. I.e., KER, MJ, VOID, EVE, SVE, KIS/KAS, KJR, etc., are fine. Feel free to ask about your favorite mod!

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Due to work commitments, I missed the closing date for the Minmus Base challenge, but I had a play with some concepts anyway.

The first was a Carousel type amusement ride. A bit primitive, just a poof of concept. I was also thinking of making the NERVs detachable and put a command seat and landing gear on them, for a nuclear motorbike. Probably not a good idea if your Kerbals are hoping to start a family in the future.

Now, as to how to get this wonky Carousel into space, I decided to tow it -

The carousel is made of wing parts, it just acts as a giant additional tailplane and isn't particularly horrendous to drag behind you. I'm not very good at calculating spaceplane delta V so this thing actually turned out way overbuilt. I designed it to decouple the whiplash boosters (and some empty tanks) on flameout, the remainder of the craft (liquid fuel only!) now has huge delta V. The Carousel isn't all that heavy.

A little later..

Saucer separation, Enterprise-D style. On an actual mission i'd tow it all the way to Minmus of course.

This was actually the maiden flight, it went better than i thought. It's a bit tricky judging balance for a craft like this - with the Carousel attached, acting as a huge tailplane, there is a danger the airplane will be excessively stable and not want to pitch up at all. OTOH with it gone, are things going to get flip happy? In the end, the only problem was when returning with the carousel detached - there is a rear shift in CG with low fuel state, and it's not stable. However I was able to land it by putting my remaining fuel in the forward tanks. Another iteration and i reckon i could eliminate that nasty characteristic, but i'm not sure i can find the motivation right now !

OMg, I forgot to close the challenge! The challenge is closed l, thank you all for participating! The medals and the next challenge will be up soon! I’llnpost The mesas when I got to my computer @obney kerman post the next challenge. Got to go!